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1992-11-07
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THE ILLUSTRATED READER--SOME IDEAS FOR APPLICATIONS
The Illustrated Reader offers a new tool
for PC enthusiasts. It is a program that
has the potential to open a segment of the
world of small computer applications to a
largely non-technical audience. As you
saw if you examined the AUTHOR.DOC file,
preparing illustrated documents for the
Illustrated Reader (IR) is really very easy.
So what are some of the possible uses for a
program like the IR? First, remember that
computers are information machines--people
use computers primarily to access information.
Second, they use them for entertainment--because they're fun.
(Of course, there is a huge segment of business that uses them
for word processing and other tasks, but I'm talking about how
people PREFER to use them.)
What follows is a series of uses that I have thought of for
the IR. These applications are by no means exhaustive, they
represent just a few ideas that came to me while I was finishing
the programming phase of this project. The purpose of this article
is to offer some examples that will stimulate your own ideas.
Electronic Books
The most obvious application for the IR is electronic books.
There are a number of electronic books on the shareware market, but
most are not illustrated. Those that have illustrations tend to be
dedicated programs, that is, actual computer programs written in
BASIC, Pascal, etc., that present mostly text with illustrations.
They are painstakingly programmed, then compiled and linked into
an executable (an .EXE file), which means it's static--it can't be
changed without reprogramming and recompiling. This, of course,
requires someone who can program. The IR makes it possible for
people with no programming background whatsoever to create electronic
books with full-color illustrations. And these books need can be
easily revised or updated without touching the Illustrated Reader
program!
Traditional books either entertain or inform. Electronic
books fall into ╔═══════════════════════╦═══════════════════════╗
these same cate- ║ ENTERTAINMENT ║ INFORMATION ║
gories, so many ╠═══════════╤═══════════╬═══════════╤═══════════╣
of the same ideas ║ Adults │ Kids ║ Adults │ Kids ║
apply. Next, ╟───────────┼───────────╫───────────┼───────────╢
books tend to ║ novels │ novels ║ career │ hobbies ║
break down into ║ biography │ biography ║ home │ pets ║
groups of readers ║ history │ history ║ hobbies │ music ║
like adults/kids. ║ poetry │ poetry ║ pets │ humor ║
While adults and ║ mass media│ mass media║ relation- │ relation- ║
kids like many ║ humor │ humor ║ ships │ ships ║
of the same types ║ │ ║ reference │ reference ║
of books, these ╚═══════════╧═══════════╩═══════════╧═══════════╝
will vary according to level, background, topics, and so on.
The ideal type of electronic book for use by the IR is one that
makes frequent use of illustrations: pictures, figures, maps, charts,
graphs, diagrams, schematics, musical notation, architectural and
other technical symbols, plots, models, timelines, etc. More and
more PC owners are upgrading to monitors and cards that support high-
resolution graphics, while new PC buyers are insisting on full-color
graphics systems for both home and business use. So the IR's time
has come--the readership is there and growing every day.
Novels and Short Stories
Why not? There is no reason why this
genre shouldn't be popular in on a video
screen as well as on paper. Think about
the phenomenal growth of notebook and
handbook computers--now they have color
screens as well as large hard drives, and
fit easily into a briefcase. And prices
are steadily falling. Business travelers
often buy paperbacks to while away the
lonely hours in hotel rooms. Now their
portable PCs can whisk them away to the
high seas, outer space, or another period
of history to experience adventure or
romance!
Non-fiction and Reference Books
As large as the market is for fiction, non-fiction and reference
books comprise the largest portion of the hardcopy market. The IR
is perfect for books and manuals that deal with technical or "how-to"
topics. It's a natural for education and training materials as well.
When it comes to technical
materials, a picture really is worth
a thousand words! Many people have
no idea what an ISA card is, or how
easily they can be installed. The
illustrations are an indispensible
part of any technical or "how-to"
document.
Besides making it easy to keep a reference work up to date, the
real advantage of an electronic reference book is the ability to
do rapid word/phrase searches so users can quickly find needed in-
formation. By dividing a reference book into .DOC files that deal
with different topics, the LOAD A NEW FILE screen in effect becomes
a table of contents, where readers can narrow their search from the
very start.
Personalized Children's Books
No doubt you've seen these ads to start Miranda was
your own personalized children's book jumping for joy!
business. Parents order from a small set
of titles, then fill out a form with their
child's name and names of siblings, pets
and friends. The publisher then feeds the
names into a computer that substitutes
these names for the names of the characters
in the books.
I saw three of these ads in the November
1992 issue of COMPUTE magazine. One offered
to set you up for only $1000--imagine that!
Are you ahead of me yet? Believe me, these stories are not great
works of children's literature. They are novelties that kids find
exciting mainly because they get to see their names and other
familiar names in print, and in the context of a story. The IR
would be perfect for such a business. Once the story and pictures
were prepared, all you would have to do is get the form from the
parents, then, because the story is just a text file, do a simple
search-and-replace operation to replace the stock names with those
of the customer's. Mail it back and it's done! In fact, parents
could even do it themselves. Teachers could do it for their students
or show older students how to use the IR. It could make some great
class reports!
Manuals for Computer Programs (Registration Incentives)
For those of you who might be shareware programmers and have
applications on the market, having an illustrated program manual
might make a powerful registration incentive. I've seen any number
of reader-type programs that enable a user to read a program's
documentation without requiring LIST or some other such program.
Why spend your valuable time creating these readers when the IR can
do this for you, while providing the ability to include helpful
illustrations?
Of course, not all programs have a need for an illustrated manual,
but for those that do (one example might be CAD or paint programs),
it just might be the one additional benefit that gets them to write
that registration check.
Other Ideas
The number of applications for the IR are only limited by the
imagination. What do you know? Do you have
a really wild collection of card games you
want to share? Recipes with techniques that
might require illustrations? Gardening hints?
How about an on-line guide
for the handyman? A PC repair book? How about an
electronic newsletter? Got any other ideas yet?
Here's one: if you haven't read the AUTHOR.DOC
file, you might want to do that now. It'll tell you how to prepare
your own IR documents. And don't forget MONEY.DOC, it spells out
registration and licensing details.
<<END OF ARTICLE>>